


Foss in therapy, part 4

by belmanoir



Series: Foss in therapy [4]
Category: Kyle XY
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-01
Updated: 2012-04-01
Packaged: 2017-11-02 20:53:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/373222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belmanoir/pseuds/belmanoir





	Foss in therapy, part 4

"How was your week?" she asks.

He's figured out by now that she's going to ask this every week. It's the polite chit-chat portion of the session. It's supposed to set him at ease or something. It doesn't. It just intensifies his buzz of dread and anticipation. He's having trouble not jogging his leg up and down. "It was fine. Yours?"

"It's been crazy. As I'm sure you know, Lori, Kyle, and Jessi are all applying to colleges this fall, and most of the schools have a deadline next week. Everyone is a ball of stress. How has training been going?"

It was Kyle complaining about training that started this whole thing. He's been trying to be calm and patient and friendly. He's not sure he's succeeding. "How do Kyle and Jessi say it's going?"

"If you want to know how Kyle and Jessi feel about training, you'll have to ask them. How do you think it's going?"

He shrugs. 

"Do you enjoy training sessions with the kids?"

It's such an unexpected question that he has to take a minute to think about it. "I guess I enjoy parts of it."

"Which parts?"

"It's nice when the kids learn something new." Yesterday, he let Jessi levitate five pounds for thirty seconds. He's been limiting her to small stuff, watching like a hawk for the first sign of side effects. He wishes he'd known about how hard Taylor was pushing her when he kicked him out of town. He would have kicked him out a lot harder. But yesterday, she floated the rock, and she put it down, and she felt fine. The wonder on her face--it was nice.

"And how do you feel the rest of the time?"

He shrugs.

She waits. Finally, she says, "If you don't want to tell me, you're going to have to say so."

Somehow, saying out loud that he doesn't want to tell her feels like more of a confession than actually telling her. "Stressed."

"Why? What do you think will go wrong?"

"How the hell should I know?" he demanded. "Anything could go wrong! I'm fumbling around in the dark here. The best I can say is that no one's gotten a nosebleed yet."

She looks grim, like maybe she'd like to hurt Taylor a little herself. "That's a good sign," she says after a moment. 

He wants to knock on the wooden table, but he squelches the impulse. 

"Do you think your stress is productive? I mean, do you think it makes you a better trainer?"

There it is again, that edge of panic at the back of his throat that's never far away. He thinks of the looks on Kyle and Jessi's faces sometimes after a tense workout. Equal parts relief and discouragement. And then he can hear them laughing together the minute they're out the warehouse door. She waits, and finally he has to say, "No."

She nods. 

"Well, what am I supposed to do?" he demands. "I can't just forget the stakes!"

"What are the stakes?"

"You know what they are!"

"I do, but I want you to say it. When you refuse to voice your fear, you give it power. Do you remember last week, when I said that if telling me was as bad as you thought it would be, you could leave?"

He nods.

"Was it as bad as you thought it would be?"

"I'm here, aren't I?"

She nods. "Mr. Foss, nothing could have been as bad as what you were expecting. When we don't express our feelings, they grow inside us until we can't see around them anymore. Just tell me--"

He wants to throw the water glass across the room. "So wh--what, Kyle and Jessi--Kyle and Jessi _dying_ is worse in my head than it would be if I said it out loud, is that what you're telling me? That if it actually happened it wouldn't really be so bad?" He's shouting. 

"No," she says earnestly. "I'm saying that it's a remote possibility. When you refuse to talk about it, your fear grows until it feels like a certainty."

She didn't seen it happen to Baylin. She hadn't--

"Mr. Foss, I'm afraid for my children, all the time. But if I let that fear consume me, I couldn't be there for them. I couldn't help them grow up. And they need me."

She's never had a kid die. She doesn't understand.

"I'd like to talk about your daughter," she says.

"No," he says flatly. That isn't--that isn't something he wants help getting over. That isn't something a person should get over.

She nods. "Then let's talk about Mr. Baylin. What was your relationship with him like?"

Tom tries to relax. That's a little safer. He shrugs.

"Did you think of him primarily as an employer, or as a friend?"

Neither of them come close to describing it. He knows what Adam would have said, though. "I worked for him. That's all."

"Did you like working for him?"

Like her question about training earlier, it seems--beside the point. "It was a job."

"Can you tell me one thing you did like about working for him? A task or a time that you felt content?"

It takes him a minute, but the answer is obvious once he thinks of it. "I liked Zzyzx."

"What did you like about it?"

"It was simple."

Her eyes narrow thoughtfully, but she doesn't say anything.

"I clocked in, I did my shift, I went home."

"And Kyle was there. What was that like?"

He shrugs again. "I spent a lot of time with him. They had me watch him while they were running tests and things."

She waits.

He slides down in his chair and looks at the ceiling. "Kyle asked me about it once. At Baylin's house. He was lying on a sofa staring up at the ceiling, and when I asked what he was doing, he said he was trying to imagine what it was like in the pod."

She smiles fondly. "And then he asked you about it?"

Tom sits back up. "He knew I worked at Zzyzx." He closes his eyes. "He wanted to know if he looked _comfortable_. Jesus."

"What did you tell him?"

He opens his eyes. "I said yeah. He kept asking, wanted details. I never understood the technical stuff."

She waits.

"He got pretty mad. Said I should have been curious."

She makes a thoughtful noise.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing. Have you ever talked to him about it again?"

"He figured out how to access the Zzyzx security feed. It can tell him a lot more than I can."

She tilts her head. "It can give him technical information. It can't tell him how you felt."

"What difference does it make how I felt?"

"It might make a difference to Kyle."

Tom doesn't say anything. Kyle doesn't care how he feels, but there's no way to say that without it sounding like a criticism. 

"You don't think Kyle cares how you feel?"

Tom shrugs.

"You know, I think it would be beneficial for the two of you to do a joint session at some point."

"What? Why?" He doesn't even want Kyle to know he's been coming. 

"You both seem to have a lot of very rigid ideas about each other and about your relationship. It might be good to get those into the open and really assess their accuracy."

He snorts. 

"I wasn't there for your conversation," she says gently, "so I can't know for certain. But it sounds to me as if Kyle didn't react to your answer. He reacted to what he perceived as your indifference."

Tom knows that. "What was I supposed to say?"

"Was there anything you would have liked to say?"

His eyes sting. Damn.

She waits, but he's not giving in this time. Finally, she asks, "Did you talk to him when he was in the pod?"

_Yes._ Kyle's never mentioned a word of it. "They said he couldn't hear me." 

"That must have been strange, to interact with Kyle for all those years in the pod, and then suddenly to have him be a real person who could respond to you--"

"He was a person!"

"Of course," she says instantly. "You're right, that was a terrible way to put it."

"Yeah, it was! If you had a kid that couldn't talk or move, would he not be a _person?_ Would you just--just--?"

"Of course he would be."

"I mean, those scientists at Zzyzx--they called him 'it'! They were just gonna toss him out with the trash! When I first saw him he was practically a baby! A baby floating in a tank, and nobody looked twice--" He broke off.

"But you did."

"What?"

"You looked twice."

He looks away. "I guess I did."

"Mr. Foss--this could be a little awkward for the two of us to talk about, but I think it's important. I promise I won't take anything you say personally."

This doesn't sound good.

"A minute ago, you said, 'if you had a child who couldn't talk.' Do you think of Kyle as your--"

He was on his feet, his body refusing to answer before his mind even figured out what she was going to ask. "It's been an hour. I'll see you next week."


End file.
